This morning I awoke to yet another reality call. It came in the form of a phone call from my
Dad. He sounded upset with the first
sound that came from his mouth. He said
the coffee pot was “broken all to hell” and that he wants instant coffee from
now on. I could hear that he basically
just had an argument with the coffee maker and it almost won. In a final act to claim victory he took the
machine and smashed it to bits under his foot and threw it in the trash. To further add injury to his victim he
wrapped up the garbage bag and walked down three flights of stairs to the
basement and threw the bag in to the dumpster, disposing all evidence that a
coffee-crime had been committed. Upon
arriving back home he took all the remaining coffee grounds including the two
brand new large containers of coffee, opened them, poured them in to the
garbage disposal, and sent it all to a watery grave.
I fought the urge to go a little crazy. A dear friend had just purchased this coffee
maker right after Mom passed away. Robb
and I had purchased two large containers of coffee for him. So here’s the hard part – remembering the
wise words of my second cousin, Jean Clifford (“live in his reality, not yours”),
I simply said we’ll take care of it. I
had to fight the urge to say SOMETHING.
I wanted him to realize that none of his actions made sense and then I
realize that yes, to him, they made perfectly sound sense.
So here’s the logic path that Alzheimer’s patients follow
and you simply cannot and SHOULD not fight it because it is logical.
1.
Coffee
pot is not working right
a.
Must be broken
i. Throw
it out
2.
No coffee maker
a.
coffee grounds not necessary anymore
i. Throw
them out
I’m upset but there’s nothing I can do about it and all He
did was take one logical step after another.
Alzheimer’s does not allow the victim to think through possible outcomes
and to problem solve. They no longer have that software. It’s like asking your computer to open a
program with Microsoft Word when you do not have Microsoft Word installed on
your computer. Instead it may open the
file as a text file and all formatting will be lost. It just won’t work because the software is no
longer installed.
Today I will go over to Dad’s and we’ll talk about the fact
that we have to wait until Thursday, payday, to rectify the coffee issue. I’ll pray to the heaven’s that the angels
guard my tongue and I fight any urge to correct him or instill at least one
sense of ‘you were wrong’ in his head.
He’s not wrong. He’s right…it is
his reality, not mine.
1 comment:
I like this blog its a master peace ! .
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